How to plan a web video production that delivers more sales and leads

Planning a video marketing campaign that delivers more engagement, sales, and leads.

This 3-part guide is designed to provide marketing professionals with the basic tools to develop a plan to produce and create profitable web videos. The Internet is full of web video marketing campaigns that lack the elements to make web video content more profitable. The promise of this video marketing guide is that if you follow the basic strategies outlined you will yield measurable improvements with your online marketing campaign.

You will learn the following from this video marketing guide:

Brief review of the value of marketing videos

Understanding how a visitor arrives at your website

Knowing the best placement for your video on your website

Understanding the importance of bounce rate

Working with your IT staff or web developer

Understanding your web visitors and customers

Creating an engaging and relevant message about our product and service

Learning to balance video run time and cost

Are Web Marketing Videos Worth The Investment?

Whether you are in the academic, corporate, small business, or non-profit sector, most marketers agree that an effective web video will increase a viewer’s desire to explore your brand more closely. Most businesses and organizations already invest in an online marketing campaign, but the question is how much more brand engagement would a promotional web video generate?

Viewers spend 100% more time on pages with videos on them. (Source: MarketingSherpa)

Viewers are 85% more likely to purchase a product after watching a product video. (Source: Internet Retailer)

What can we learn from theses statistics? Web videos clearly result in higher lead generation and sales – but the videos must also motivate your audience to take action.

Additionally, a video must also be placed on your website so that it can easily be seen. This may sound obvious but plenty of potentially effective marketing videos are placed on the bottom of a website or linked to by text, which is barely noticeable.

The answer to the question “Are Web Marketing Videos Worth The Investment?” is a resounding “Yes”. However, as you may have suspected, it is not the end of the story.

What actually happens when a web visitor gets to your website?

A customer searches online to find answers to a problem they have. They seek a solution. They type a question or a few keywords to describe their problem or the solution they are seeking.

Perhaps eight to ten choices appear in the search. Based on the titles and descriptions the search results displays they quickly narrow it down to two or three choices; for example, you and two of your competitors.

They click on your website link which most often lands the web visitor on your home page.

What the prospect does next is very important because they will quickly decide if your page is worth further research or if they should move on to the next website. As you already know, video will keep the audience engage and motivated. Therefore, place your video in the upper half of your website, front and center, with an unmistakable invitation to view your video content. The position and location of your video is critically important. If your video cannot easily be seen then the marketing benefit is instantly lost.

How do you know the placement and content of your video is effective?

The effectiveness of your video can be measured so that you can quickly find out if your strategy works. A popular tool to measure the effectiveness is Google Analytics. One of the top three metrics within Google Analytics is the bouncerate.

Why is the bounce rate so critical for online marketing?

The bounce rate measures how quickly web visitors enter and leave your site. Specifically, it represents the percentage of visitors who leave your site after seeing only the very first page they visit on your website. In other words, a high bounce rate means that most visitors do NOT feel your website offers enough value to stay beyond the initial page they visit. A 40% bounce rate is considered average in the United States. Google suggests that a good average bounce rate is 20%. If your bounce rate is above 60-70% then you have a very ineffective content marketing strategy and you are in need of a major change.

A high bounce rate can be extremely costly particularly if you have recently invested in expensive website content and design. Either way, you need to rethink your website and content marketing strategy.

The bounce rate for our home page, eTown Videos, www.etownvideos.com is averaging less than 1% over the past three months. This means that over 99% of all visitors stay on our site after they first arrive.

Why would the bounce rate be significantly lower than the average?

The videos are prominently displayed and engage the audience.

The content is relevant, informative, and creative.

Note: A high bounce rate can also be the cause of a poorly designed website. For example, websites that load slowly and that are not mobile friendly will also cause web visitors to leave your website after viewing only a single page.

Many of our clients in Western Massachusetts and throughout New England show improved bounce rates when effective video content has been added to their websites.

Therefore, if you have not done so already you ought to measure your current bounce rate for your website. This is an important starting point.

Sven Kielhorn can be reached at the eTown Videos' offices, 413-324-1130. About Sven and eTown Videos: Sven Kielhorn founded eTown Videos in 2006. Sven has been working in motion graphic design and digital video for 15 years. As Creative and Marketing Director at eTown Videos, Sven works with businesses in developing strategies to incorporate web video technologies into their online marketing campaigns. Additionally, he works on all phases of video production, post-production, and video marketing.
Sven also serves on the marketing committee of the Greater Easthampton Chamber of Commerce and produces the chamber's monthly member video spotlight.